PRESIDENT BUSH last night delivered a powerful speech that left no one with any doubt that he’s ready to go to war unless Saddam Hussein disarms fast.

His tone was grave but confident as he sought to reassure anxious Americans that they can confidently face “an awareness of peril” and cope with war and a rough economy because America has done it before.

“It was as close to a declaration of war as you could get without using the word. It was a speech that gave off all the vibrations of a resolute leader – he did exactly what he needed to do,” said presidential scholar Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

“It will be a two-shot, because his ratings in the polls will take a blip up, and this will be very useful to him in other [foreign] capitals, where they’ll remember they’re dealing with a popular president and it’s hard to stand in his way.”

Bush left much of the heavy lifting to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who next Wednesday will present evidence to the United Nations to answer skeptics who question why the crunch must come now. But the firmness of Bush’s tone was a message to the world that he is truly set on a course and that in the end, other leaders will have to choose between siding with America or Saddam.

The president sought to revive the sense of “calm unity in great causes” that helped him lead America after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks – a mood that in recent months has been overtaken by a growing sense of uncertainty and political division.

He didn’t claim everything is coming up roses but, rather, that Americans can cope with peril – in words recalling Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous reassurance that there is “nothing to fear but fear itself.”

“In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril,” Bush said. “And we go forward with confidence because this call of history has come to the right country.”

Presidential scholar Charles O. Jones called it “a great speech” because it conveyed a sense of resolve and linked today’s crisis to America’s role in history. Before the speech, Jones said Bush had to convince the public on Iraq. Afterward, he said, “If this doesn’t make the case, it can’t be made.”